Medscape Reader's Response to Barrett's Review of CAM

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http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/518447?src=mp

Reader's Response to the Book Review Entitled " Complementary and Alternative

Medicine in the United States "

Posted 12/22/2005

It is curious that you have provided space to a hostile reviewer to air his

prejudiced view of Complementary and Alternative Medicine.[1] Dr. Barrett states

in his first sentence that " health-related methods that are plausible should be

tested with well-designed clinical trials. " The studies conducted by the NIH

[National Institutes of Health] National Center for Complementary and

Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) are a step in providing the kind of test that Dr.

Barrett says should be applied.

Dr. Barrett complains that " the IOM report does not contain a single word of

criticism against methods that are sufficiently irrational to be discarded now. "

But the scientific test of whether a method is effective is not its rationality

in the current medical paradigm, but how effective it is in treating human

illness.

[For the full article, please click the link above.]